


No-Work Ethic

by bugsuit



Series: 100 Prompts - Archer [7]
Category: Archer (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 06:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6042241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bugsuit/pseuds/bugsuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LOST: Ocelot, semi-tame, answers to Asshole. DO NOT TOUCH / WILL BITE!</p>
<p>Less about Babou, more about the complete shambles that masquerades as a spy organisation. (7. Pet)</p>
            </blockquote>





	No-Work Ethic

“And just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

With her hand on her hip and the other swirling gin, Malory was blockading the door to the hall like – Cheryl thought – some kind of barbed wire dragon. And as kinky as that sounded, she wasn’t in the mood.

“Um… using the copy machine?” she hazarded. “I mean, I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“I don’t remember giving you a reason,” Malory pointed out, jabbing the edge of her martini glass in Cheryl’s direction. “So it _stands_ to reason you’re using company property to waste company paper at _my expense.”_

“It’s for a good cause!” Cheryl offered, sounding more annoyed than placating.

Malory narrowed her eyes.

Pam to the rescue. She bobbed up behind Malory’s shoulder, a finger held aloft in protest. “A really _good_ cause! Cheryl lost her ocelot! Without him, Tunt Manor’s bigger ‘n’ emptier than ever.”

Malory’s icy glare hardened even further.

Cheryl quickly interrupted the biting command to _stop immediately_ that the dragon lady was about to spew forth. “If I can’t find Babou in one week I’m going on leave to look for him and you’ll have to do _all_ your filing yourself. And refill your own glass. _And_ get ice.”

“You used up all your sick days the last time you thought you had _cooties,”_ Malory ground out scathingly, unwilling to let this slide so easily.

“Ray gave them to me! God, I stayed clean for twenty-two years and then he drank out of my glass at the bar, it’s not my fault!” She huffed and went back to trying to un-stick the paper jam that had somehow occurred somewhere between the 200th and 300th flyer. “Besides, I meant _maternity leave.”_

Malory pressed a hand affectedly to her chest. “You’re pregnant?”

Ugh! _“No!_ But I’ve lost the one thing in my life that might constitute as a parent-child relationship! The only difference is he pisses on my belongings to show affection, so let me copy my goddamn flyers before I pop open a can of gasoline and redecorate your office.”

Malory gave a long-suffering sigh. “Not _that_ different,” she mumbled icily into her martini glass.

“What?”

“Hm? Pam, I’m sure I don’t want to interrupt your busy day, so shouldn’t you be cleaning everyone’s _Delete_ keys in anticipation of your next newsletter?”

“Oh-kay.” Pam rolled her eyes and headed off down the corridor, already knowing when an argument wasn’t worth having.

“And as for you, missy,” she added, shooting Cheryl a poisonous look, “you had better be done with this nonsense and back at your desk by the end of lunch break, or I swear to God I’m giving your job to the next wild animal that wanders into the laundromat.”

Cheryl gasped. “He’s _here_ and you _didn’t tell me?”_

Malory’s only hint that she was being spectacularly obtuse was in the way she frowned disbelievingly and turned on her heel.

Cheryl listened to her clack away along the corridor and scoffed to herself.

“I’m Ms. Archer,” she imitated, throwing on her overenunciated ‘posh’ voice for good measure, “I don’t know how to use a computer so I pay Cheryl Tunt to play Minesweeper all day!” She tugged roughly at the jammed paper until it tore off in her hand, and angrily slammed her fist down on the machine. It chewed up the remaining paper and spat out a crumpled, inky mess.

“What was that, Cheryl?”

Cheryl sighed. “Nothing, Ms. Archer!” she called through a cupped hand. “I just said your computer needs its water changing!”

Silence.

“I mean, its oil!” she tried, and listened intently for a response.

“That’s what I thought! Don’t try to take me for a fool, you ingrate, I know machines.”

Somewhere in the building, a door slammed. Cheryl smirked to herself and upped the copy queue another hundred, just to be safe.

 

* * *

 

Cheryl waggled the sheaf of papers at him again, in case he hadn’t quite caught on.

“Everyone else is helping,” she insisted. “At least stick a few on people’s cars or something.”

Archer plucked the top sheet off the stack and flipped it over to read it. Then he tensed, the ice in his scotch clinking tunefully against the glass. “Oh my God! Cheryl, you lost Babou?”

“For God’s sake, Archer, the woman only told you ninety-five times!”

“Six, Ray,” he snapped. “She told me _six_ times over two days. And I was only listening this once, so you might as well drop that number to one.” He downed the rest of his scotch and set the glass on the nearest desk (Cyril’s), making grabby motions with his freed hands. “Gimme. This is a matter of grave emergency.”

Cheryl slid the stack of flyers into his hands, looking smug. “I knew my coworkers would help me with a matter so close to my heart. You guys are… well, not the _best,”_ she mused, “or really good at all, but you’re… less… the worst.”

“Thank you, Cheryl,” said Ray. “We’ll all remember your kind words the next time Ms. Archer tries to fire you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some company time to waste. Dibs-“

“Dibs on the nearest four blocks,” Archer cut in, turning to leave.

“Damn it!”

“Come _on,_ Ray, you have bionic legs, how hard can it be to walk a little further out? Besides, I have like, a million flyers here because Cheryl apparently can’t divvy up paper competently between six people.”

“There are seven of us,” Lana pointed out helpfully.

Krieger held up his hands defensively. “Oh, I have more important things to be doing.”

Lana was about to give him an earful, but then it clicked. She sighed and just looked at him questioningly instead. “Lives at stake? And is that why you smell like mulch?”

He looked shifty. “Yes and yes. But mostly I think looking for Cheryl’s ocelot isn’t important in the first place.”

Cheryl made an upset noise and folded her arms. “It’s not my fault you can’t sexually satisfy a non-holographic human being, Krieger, no need to take it out by being a ginormous _shitlord._ But fine, maybe I don’t want my ex on the Babou Tracking Team anyway!” She span on her heel and headed for the elevator, distinctly not looking at him while she jabbed repeatedly at the door close button. A second after the elevator shut, her muffled voice called out, “Dibs on the closest blocks after Mr. Archer’s!”

A murmur of dissent went up among those left behind.

“I vote we cab-pool to the nearest block of cafes and dump them all in their trash can while we order lattes,” Cyril suggested.

“Cab-pool’s not a word, Cyril.” Pam hip-bounced him out of the way. “Also, you’re kind of an asshole! That ocelot means an oce- _lot_ to her!” She snickered distinctly on her way out of the room, and Lana groaned.

“Maybe I’ll just shoot both of you in a murder-suicide, and then _none_ of us have to go flyer-dropping,” Lana responded. She fell into step behind Pam, hefty stack of flyers pinned under her arm. “Though, yes, a coffee sounds like a good idea.”

“Think of it this way. Ms. Archer is gonna be wondering _all day_ why there’s no one around to top up her frickin’ martini. God, I love working at this shitty place.”

As the two women headed off to wait by the elevator, Cyril leaned on his desk and leafed through the copies in his hand.

There was a watermarked picture of an ocelot Cheryl had ripped from the internet in lieu of an actual photo of Babou, and printed in large, chunky text across the top was the word “LOST”. Beneath that, a brief description: _Ocelot, semi-tame, answers to Asshole. DO NOT TOUCH / WILL BITE!_

“That’s not… Cheryl used the company phone number!”

Krieger looked unfazed. “I do not see why that’s a problem.”

He rolled his eyes. “She’s not going to _be here._ Why didn’t she just use her cell phone? It’s not like _Ms. Archer_ is gonna answer the phone for news on her stupid ocelot.”

Krieger frowned in confusion for a second. “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh.”_ Cyril slapped the flyers down on his desk. “No point even handing these out, really. If you ask me, that thing’s better off hit by a car than going back to Cheryl’s empty ballroom.”

“Wow. You _are_ an asshole lately,” Krieger remarked. “Also, I said _oh_ because this whole thing is pointless. Babou’s in the lab.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Cyril blinked. Maybe working for this company had sucked all of the surprise right out of him, because he just looked blank.

“What?”

 

* * *

 

“See? He’s fine!” Krieger declared, reaching down to pet the ocelot on its furry head. “He’s been keeping me company.”

_“Reeowr!”_

Cyril took a cautionary step back, none too fond of the animal’s well-known spraying habit. Also, Krieger smelled kind of a lot more chemical-y than usual, and he wasn’t too keen on finding out why. “And… you didn’t think to tell Cheryl about this?”

Krieger shrugged. “It never came up. Although, yes, maybe I’ll tell her when she gets back from posting flyers that Babou isn’t actually _lost.”_

The ocelot purred around Krieger’s legs, tail twitching, and trotted off to the shadows beneath a desk. Cyril heard chewing noises.

“He’s like a fuzzy garbage disposal unit,” Krieger explained cheerfully. He wandered over to a metal table piled high with wires and metal, and begin sorting the mess into plastic storage boxes. After a moment he gestured to Cyril. “Gonna stand there, or help me sift through robotics?”

“The former,” Cyril replied simply, wandering over to Babou’s hiding place and bobbing down onto his haunches. In the shady corner, the ocelot was chewing on something that he supposed was probably a kind of meat he didn’t want to identify. “How’d he get in here?”

Krieger tossed a melted bit of plastic over his shoulder. “I _assume_ he followed me to work. I stayed at Cheryl’s for a few hours. We were all pretty blazed.” A beat. Krieger looked up in alarm. “Me and Cheryl. Babou was just high on catnip. Which I was also covered in.” His attention returned to the wires he was untangling. “Which,” he added a moment later, “explains several things.”

Cyril shook his head and straightened up, slumping into the nearest wheeled office chair that had somehow found its way out of the main office. “This company is a shambles,” he said quietly. “I always kind of thought this was me getting a foot in the door. It sounded better than being a lawyer. Don’t ask me why.”

“I won’t,” Krieger said reassuringly. “But working for Ms. Archer isn’t so bad, if you ask me. It’s like being a pearlfish. One day you’re swimming around in the big wide world and the next – _shwoop!”_ He swished his finger in an aeroplane motion. “You’re up a sea cucumber’s butt, eating its precious bodily resources from the inside out.”

Cyril suppressed a shudder. “Ew.”

“My point is, we can be as parasitic as we want and Ms. Archer doesn’t care as long as her drink is topped up. I learned that when I was sixteen.”

For a moment or two, Cyril just sat there staring at him. When it sunk in, he frowned deeply. “Oh, that’s right! The whole… clone… Nazi… Brazil thing. You’ve really been glued to her that long, haven’t you?”

Krieger paused what he was doing just long enough to give Cyril a cursory glance – one that spoke volumes about how little he wanted to engage in this topic with him.

“I’m sure I do _not_ remember,” he said carefully.

“Bullshit,” Cyril replied, completely deadpan. “Also, do _not_ care any more. Stranger things have happened while I’ve worked for this company, so…” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Wow. Stranger things than cloned Nazis really have happened. That’s one of those things that sounds less weird in your head.”

Krieger carefully did not look at him. “Then,” he ventured, “I’m sure I do remember. And I’m also sure that how long I’ve spent in Ms. Archer’s employment is none of anybody else’s business.” He glanced up, gauged Cyril’s reaction – or, apparently, complete lack thereof – and relaxed slightly. “She picked me up as a teenager. It’s a long story. Also, not a Nazi.” He shrugged and distracted himself quickly with some more tangled wiring.

“You totally are,” Cyril snorted, “but I wasn’t actually asking this time.” He rolled his chair away from the distinct crunching noises coming from beneath the corner table and over to the bank of computer screens that showed various views of the offices. The place was pretty empty.

He tapped buttons until one of the screens switched to a view of Malory’s office. She was engaged in a fairly intense phone conversation, twisting the cord distractedly around her fingers as she leaned back in her chair and glared daggers at the ceiling.

“She hasn’t even noticed everyone left,” he noted. “You’re right. She really doesn’t care, does she?”

Behind him, Krieger made a noncommittal noise. “She will once her gin runs out. But that’s your jurisdiction.”

“What? Cheryl’s the one in charge of-“

“I meant money-handling,” Krieger interrupted. “As long as the company coffers are full, Ms. Archer can buy more gin, or whatever else she wants, and she’ll overlook pretty much anything. You _have_ been doing your job, right?”

He scoffed. “Obviously. But we _are_ in the red. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you skimming, Krieger. I just haven’t said anything because I’m-“

“Building up a blackmail list?”

“Yes. So watch yourself, because El Contador-“

“-didn’t clear his internet history,” Krieger finished for him. “Also, regularly cries in the men’s bathrooms, and anonymously commented on Pam’s blog last week asking for nudes.”

“Wh-!”

“Of _himself.”_

“Krieger! How do – I mean – I have _no_ idea what you’re-“

“Should I keep going, or are you still going to try and blackmail me?”

For a moment, they just stared at each other, Krieger with his arms folded and leaning casually on the table, and Cyril with both hands gripping the seat of the office chair a little too tightly. Finally, he span back around to face the monitors.

“I’m not going to ask how you got any of that information.”

“That is definitely for the best,” Krieger said matter-of-factly. “But should you ever need blackmail material on anyone else, it’s a good thing you already know where to send the money. So technically, being the accountant here means you do have your foot in _a_ door. Just… not a completely above-board one.”

Cyril cycled through different views of the building, staring vacantly at the screens. Maybe working for a spy agency hadn’t been the big break he’d naively hoped for, but it was a (fairly) stable job and… well, knowing people who knew people who had cameras everywhere wasn’t an entirely bad thing. Especially when Krieger’s morals came in shades of cash.

Speaking of…

“Do you think Cheryl will put out reward money?”

“For Babou?” Krieger considered this for a moment, then hummed. “Two more days ought to do it. You’d be surprised what hating him does for that woman.”

“She’d pay to get her ocelot back so she can _hate_ it all day?”

Cyril glanced over his shoulder and caught Krieger giving him a _well, duh_ sort of look.

“…I mean… it _is_ why she works _here,_ right?”

Cyril rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I’m just thinking, because… It’s not technically a ransom if she thinks we found him on the street.”

They both looked over at the furry tail poking out from beneath the table, and for a long time no one said anything.

“Move him into a back room,” Cyril suggested in a hushed voice.

Krieger put down the handful of wires.

“Here, Babou! Puss-puss-puss!”

Cyril watched the ocelot dart out from the shadows, eyes wide and dilated, and start rubbing its face sluggishly on Krieger’s outstretched hand.

“Did you put a chip in his brain? I thought Babou was a wild, piss-spraying animal.”

Krieger stood up once the purring ocelot was bundled in his arms. “Well, I actually _feed_ him when I visit. And one time I gave him one of those motorised balls with the fluffy tail attached. That might have something to do with it.”

Babou wiped his face on the man’s sleeve, leaving a wet patch of cat drool, and lazily stretched out an arm like a truck driver on a long haul. His pupils, Cyril noted, were _massive._

Krieger realised he was staring, and offered the other explanation. “Also, this lab coat is literally _soaked_ in a catnip solution. He is high as kitty balls right now,” he admitted, and shrugged dismissively. “He _scratched_ me last week – I’m a problem solver! …Hey, can you get the door? Ocelots weigh a lot more than you’d think.”

**Author's Note:**

> This one took forever because I tried going in about eighty different directions with it and none actually felt very engaging. In the end it was either force out something to do with Babou, or write something about pet-play. I'm just not kinky enough, apparently.
> 
> Honestly kind of glad to be done with this prompt because it was a lot less fun than I thought it would be. Moving on...


End file.
